the sad loss of gender
As the ascetic and the poet meditate on death and thus gratefully enjoy the exquisite aliveness of the present, so we must face the sad loss of gender. I strongly suspect that a contemporary art of living can be recovered, so long as our austere and clear-sighted acceptance of the double ghetto of economic neuters then moves us to renounce the comforts of economic sex. The hope for such a life rests upon the rejection of sentimentality and on openness to surprise - Ivan Illich, Gender (1982)
…and you day by day wonder how people can pretend to be so stupid when you know that they know better, and you know that they know that you know…
and all the swallow-swallow turn-away…the ‘hm…well’…the blank space where a face should be…the vacuum where a conversation well, what?…
and the language of the gulp, the betrayal
we are still alive
and the whatever it means when we say that
becomes how do we get through this day
and for what?
Do you remember the time when time was what was to come
when you had a thought to pursue
rather than a position to maintain
and the birds sit on the demolition
as they always do
and you think could I just do nothing for six months
and what would happened if I just stopped doing anything
and maybe we could live in a weird little community
and would my parents mind if I lived in a tent in their garden
and you wonder what it would be like to be so certain
because you have no idea
but you remember being bored
and when everyone was different
and it was intertwined,
the boredom and the difference
and in the bounce